Rollout of 12 identical PCs at once with Win2K server

[primesuspect]

Okay, I know it's possible, but I'm looking for a step-by-step summary of how to do it. No need to go into excruciating detail, but a summary would help tremendously.

We have a client who just purchased 12 identical machines, and I want to set one up to be the 'gold image' and then roll it out to the other 11 boxes.

This is on a fully working active directory domain, and the 12 machines are replacing existing machines.

Is this something I can do with RIS, or should I be using a tool like Acronis?

I'm going to assume that the new machines are PxE boot capable - they are brand new dell optiplexes.

Do I join the gold computer to the domain and then run some kind of sys prep tool to remove the UID before creating the master image, or do I join them to the domain after they are imaged?

etc...

:D

[QCH]

Do I join the gold computer to the domain and then run some kind of sys prep tool to remove the UID before creating the master image, or do I join them to the domain after they are imaged?
WOW.... I could walk you through the process using Deploy Center (Bought out by Symantec) or even Ghost but Acronis is alien to me....

As for the Domain stuff... I would NOT join the domain on the base image PC. Our domain pushes down GPO's and some of the UID's are not cleared when you sysprep. F@H UID is not reset, for instance.

1- Setup system the way you want it....

2- Copy sysprep with your modified winnt.sif to "c:/sysprep"

3- Make an image of the system, incase sysprep doesn't do what you want.

3- To reset SIDs and UIDs, Run Sysprep from Command Shell… “c:/sysprep/sysprep.exe –mini –reseal -quiet"

4- Then let the system restart but stop it from booting. At this point, make an image of the system.

5- Bring system up and see if it did what you think it should...

6- If good, burn the image to CD(s) and install it to the other PC's. Acronis may have a server ability and them you could broadcast the image to every PC. Oh, use a private network. I've seen networks die when Ghost Server tries to push out an image.

[Shorty]

RIS would be suitable but unless the network adapter is supported (and only a few are).. then you are gonna struggle.

Instead..

Grab a copy of BartPE (http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/), put in your network & mass storage drivers, create a ghost image with the sys-prepped image onto a network (using the sys prep method that ya man Q described above), then just boot each one with your customised BartPE cd, map network drive and pull down the ghost image :)

[primesuspect]

Incredibly dumb question: Where is sysprep.exe? :confused:

[QCH]

I believe the sysprep can be downloaded from Microsoft here (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=7a83123d-507b-4095-9d9d-0a195f7b5f69&DisplayLang=en).

[Shorty]

Actually.. it's on your Windows 2000 server CD...

CD_root/support/tools/deploy.cab

Extract all the files in deploy.cab to a directory :)

:)

[primesuspect]

Yup, after I posted that n00b question, I found it in deploy.cab. duh.

not used to looking for stuff inside of .cab files. :rolleyes:

Anyways, I was able to do a successful test, so thank you guys very much :D

[QCH]

No Problem....

[QCH]

How did it go?

[primesuspect]

It went fine. I ended up using Acronis True Image to push out two at a time (two drives hooked up to the secondary IDE channel of my testbench computer), so it took about 30 minutes total to image all 12 drives. I ended up not using RIS because it was overkill for only 12 PCs.

:)